MEMOIR | REMINISCENCES OF 1970s D.C.
If the Auto Chase Wasn’t Exciting Enough, the Revolver Was
San Juan, 1973, A Car Chase, A Six-Shooter, And The Admiral (Part 1/2)
(Not a Medium member? Click to read this story, gratis.)
The four of us stepped off the plane at San Juan Airport and made our way to the baggage claim area. There were me, my two first lovers, Michael and Tommy, and my boyfriend before them, Mike.
Now it may seem strange to you that I was on vacation with two first lovers. How does one do that, have two first lovers? There are a short answer and the longer story behind it.
The short answer is that I met two lovers at a dinner given by a pair of my acquaintances, Raj and Ulf, only weeks after I came out. I had been dating Mike for two weeks when he wasn’t home on a Sunday we had set aside for dinner. I went down one floor and knocked on Raj’s and Ulf’s door, whom I had met only the weekend before when Mike introduced us, and they invited me to stop by any time. That Sunday, they hosted Michael and Tommy, who lived across the hall, for dinner on their seventh anniversary. Ulf invited me to join them.
Before we left the table, I was undeniably and irretrievably in love with all of Michael and Tommy and the entity that was the two of them together. After dinner and hours of conversation in Raj’s and Ulf’s living room, they invited me to their apartment, where I spent not just that night but also every night for the four years that I was part of that loving, committed, miraculous relationship. So, that’s the short story of how I acquired two first lovers.
Mike got over being dumped for his two neighbors. We remained good friends. Raj, Ulf, and he were integral to our (the triad’s) circle.
You’re wondering how the triad came to be on vacation in San Juan with the former boyfriend of one of them. That’s a simple story too. We, the triad, decided to vacation in San Juan. In the classifieds at the back of the New Yorker magazine, I found a discreet, understated ad for a gay guest house called Arcos Blancos just outside the Old City. There was one problem. Arcos Blancos was an old villa with only small bedrooms with one double bed. There were three of us, too many to fit comfortably into a double for a night; someone would have to sleep alone in a second room. That had a scarce attraction.
We hit on the idea of inviting Mike to join us with the understanding that we would be sleeping with him in rotation — one of us on a night, then another, then another, then the first again…
So there it is, how I, my two first lovers, and my former boyfriend came to step off the plane together in San Juan in mid-September 1973.
We gathered our baggage and walked to the taxi area. The taxis at the curb some distance to our left seemed to be otherwise engaged than looking for a fare. None was interested in picking us up, though many drivers stood around talking and doing little else.
We were about to walk to them when a car stopped at the curb beside us.
“You want ride to town?” the driver asked in heavily accented English.
“We’re going to Arcos Blancos,” Michael said, giving the street address.
“Yes. I take you,” the driver said and opened the trunk.
We piled our luggage in and opened the doors. Mike, Tommy, and Michael all crowded onto the back bench seat. I opened the front passenger door, got in, and we were off.
All went well for a few blocks until our driver looked concernedly into the rear-view mirror.
“Shit!” he exclaimed.
I turned, looked back, and saw a file of three vehicles closely following us. The driver downshifted and stomped on the accelerator. The car lurched forward so quickly I wondered that the front wheels hadn’t risen up and left the roadway. The force shoved my left shoulder hard against the seatback. The three amigos’ heads snapped back. Tommy’s eyes widened. Michael’s face set in a grim look I hadn’t seen before. Mike seemed momentarily stunned.
I turned back around in time to be thrown against the door by the car’s sudden lane change to the left. With both hands on the wheel and eyes set dead forward, the driver swerved into and out of the opposing lane several times, passing cars when he ought not have, and sped up even more.
I was about to say something when he made a careening, tire-screeching right turn, throwing me to my left against him. There were no seat belts. Before I fully righted myself, he did the same again at the next intersection, taking us back in the direction from which we had come, then made an impossible turn left onto a bit of side street barely wide enough for one car.
“Hey!” Michael yelled from in back.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, looking over at him.
He slowed some and again looked in the rear-view mirror.
“It’s OK now,” he sighed.
Well, that was obviously not true, but being a stranger in a strange land, I didn’t know quite how to challenge him on it.
He slowed to a reasonable speed and made another left taking us back in the direction we had originally been headed. Then he turned left again, drove two blocks, and turned right back onto the main road, keeping his eyes alternately on the road and the mirror.
“What was …” Michael was asking when the driver interrupted him.
“Shit! Damn! Madre de Dios!” he yelled, again looking in the mirror.
I turned to look out the back window. The file of three cars was behind and closing fast. The driver sped up as much as traffic allowed, took his right hand off the wheel, leaned over, and opened the glove compartment. He withdrew a six-shot revolver with the longest damned barrel I could imagine. He straightened up, and put the gun in his seat, tucking the barrel under his left thigh.
Only Michael and I saw.
“Oh, hell,” Michael said surprisingly softly.
“What?” Mike asked after catching his breath.
I was about to suggest that he could let us off anywhere when the whole routine started again. After what seemed miles but was only blocks, he made a hard stop in front of a police station. He flung open his door, leapt out, and ran into the station shouting something in rapid Spanish all the while. The revolver slipped to the driver’s floor well.
Thank God, it didn’t go off, I thought to myself.
The three vehicles pulled up behind us. The drivers got out but only stood beside their open doors. Soon, two police officers came out. Our driver was nowhere to be seen.
One officer came up to my door and made a sign for me to roll the window down. The other officer strode around the car to the open driver’s door and stood there looking back at the three drivers.
The first officer leaned into the car and leisurely looked all four of us over.
“Americans?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I stammered over the lump in my throat where my vocal cords alone should have been.
Looking directly at me, the officer directed.
“Get out of the car, please.”
We stood face to face invading each other’s personal space. Michael, Tommy, and Mike remained huddled in the back, windows rolled up, doors closed. Somehow, I had been nominated the spokesperson for our little troop.
“You are coming from the airport, no? He queried. But he was solicitous and spoke in a non-threatening tone. He backed up, putting some space between us.
“Yes, sir.”
“Ah. I see,” he said, then continued. “There is a bitter taxi cab strike on. That man is a scab,” he continued gesturing over his shoulder toward the station door.
“There is nothing to fear. Where are you going?”
“A guest house near the Old City.”
“Name?”
“Arcos Blancos,” I answered without thinking.
“Ah, yes, I know it,” he stated with what seemed like resignation in his voice.
Damn, involuntarily outed to the police within half an hour of getting here, I thought. How much better can this trip get?
Homosexual acts were still criminalized in that Catholic U.S. territory. I expected us soon to be in separate cells lest we should do something funny if they put us all in the same cell.
“This man,” the officer continued, gesturing with his hand to the first vehicle driver to bring his car forward, “is one of the striking drivers. He will take you safely to your guest house. There will be no charge, and he will be offended if you offer him a tip.”
The taxi driver nodded his head. The second officer leaned into the car and pulled the knob to open the trunk. The taxi driver retrieved our luggage. Putting it in his trunk, he gestured a welcome. The first officer opened our car’s back door and motioned for Michael, Tommy, and Mike to get out. He shooed them toward the taxi and made a broad sweep with his left arm inviting me to go there too.
We climbed in, them in back and me again in front. We drove uneventfully and at a reasonable speed to Arcos Blancos, where the owner Marcos awaited us at the curb. He warmly greeted us, individually shaking hands all around.
“You have had an adventure, yes?” he said. “Of course you have. The police called and told me.”
With that, he motioned us inside. The taxi driver got our suitcases and took them to the foyer. We followed. On his way out, we each shook his hand, saying how grateful we were and tactfully omitting to mention that he and his compadres had chased us at speed halfway through the city.
So began my most exciting vacation.
Next
More from the Desk of
